Assistance Solicitors Pro Bono: Toynbee Hall Legal Business May 2004
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The lawyers and clients of Toynbee Hall’s legal advice centre in action: listening; organising; and sorting – all for free
Assistance solicitors Disgraced Tory MP John Profumo made Toynbee Hall famous by selfless devotion to deprived people in the City. City lawyers are now lending their services for free. Legal Business watched them in action VANESSA PAWSEY
WEDNESDAY, 17 MARCH, 6.30PM. A queue is forming in the courtyard outside Toynbee Hall, an elegant Victorian building that stands aesthetically defiant among the hideous concrete structures that dwarf it. Worst of these is the Denning Point tower block, notorious host to one of London’s most run-down estates. The queue comprises nearly 25 people who shuffle forward in silence: men and women, old and young; a bouffant-haired granny with a wicker basket; a Bengali woman covered so that only her eyes peek out from her burqa. They’re waiting to meet their lawyers: some of the sharpest legal minds in the City. Inside the reception area, 19 lawyers – all volunteers – are busily moving chairs
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around in an attempt to convert the administrative heart of the Toynbee Hall complex into the ad hoc waiting room of an ad hoc legal advice centre. As the ‘clients’ are led in, in twos and threes, their problems are summarised and annotated on small pieces of card, which are then filed in a box. Toynbee’s volunteer lawyers come from various barristers chambers – and from an elite set of City firms: Allen & Overy; Ashurst; Bird & Bird; Linklaters; Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw; SJ Berwin; and Trowers & Hamlins. Such firms offer little by way of preparation, in terms of case histories. The first man in is feeling the full force of marriage – his wife has a harassment order against him, but he says that he’s the one being harassed. Next is a lady who wants her share of the house now that she and her husband have split up. Then a man whose car has been wrongly clamped. Following him, a woman who slipped in a shop and suffered a long-term injury, but
Photography ADRIAN HOBBS
has only been awarded £800 compensation. The next man can’t get a minicab licence – why? Finally, a woman has prepaid for an education course that isn’t what it said it was. Despite its Latinate delicacy, pro bono can be gritty, mundane, and wearisome stuff.
The poor man’s lawyer Toynbee Hall makes a virtue of juxtaposing privilege and poverty. Founders Samuel and Henrietta Barnett opened the hall in 1884. They believed that the elimination of poverty relied on the redistribution of social and economic benefits such as legal advice. As a result, the organisation has strong links with social thinkers and politicians. The photo board inside is
covered with images of speakers on social policy who have recently visited: John Major; Ann Widdecombe; Oliver Letwin; Jon Snow; Michael Portillo; Edward Heath; Bishop Sentamu; Iain Duncan Smith; and Ken Livingstone. (Legal Business went to see shadow Home Secretary Oliver Letwin give a coruscating talk on poverty across the UK. When asked at the end what he would do about it, he replied with impeccable courtesy: ‘I don’t know.’ John Profumo, who was immortalised in the film Scandal due to his affair with actress Christine Keeler and who is now president of Toynbee Hall, sat next to him at the top table, partially hidden by a bronze bust of himself.) In its 120-year existence, Toynbee Hall has mushroomed into a home for over 30 charities, spanning cradle-to-grave benevolence. They include the Stepney Children’s Fund (for which Simmons & Simmons helped fund a minibus) to elderly > housing care.
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According to Linklaters partner Christopher Coombe, who was a volunteer at the legal advice centre in the 1970s before becoming a trustee in 1993 and chairman in 2001, the organisation offers an unusual combination of opportunities. ‘People involved in City work can engage with issues that affect a deprived community living on their doorstep. They are then able to combine community service with a high profile in social policy development,’ he says. Seven hours of Coombe’s week are devoted to Toynbee.
Reclaiming Toynbee The legal advice centre at Toynbee Hall is now being given a new lease of life. Linklaters, to Coombe’s credit, has provided substantial funding for the organisation since 1997. In 2000, the firm began supporting Toynbee’s resident volunteer project and it now injects between £30,000 and £40,000 a year. In 2001, solicitors Ben Giaretta and Paddy Boyle persuaded Ashurst to help fund a new co-ordinator role that would be responsible for expanding the advice centre. The volunteers persuaded a former resident called Brian Cunningham to take on the position. Cunningham, who lived at Toynbee Hall in 1989, never severed his ties, although he had gone on to do a Masters and then embark on a PhD in neuroscience. The final paper of the
doctorate now has little chance of completion. ‘I decided I would do much more good working full-time at Toynbee than slaving away in my little science lab,’ he says. Cunningham has been busy. Toynbee’s legal advice centre now opens five times a week as opposed to once when he took on the role. Monday deals with employment issues, Tuesday offers housing advice, the original Wednesday night remains general, lawyers give debt advice on Thursday and, on Saturday, there is a session for Bengali women. Tower Hamlets has a large Bengali population whose patriarchal culture has fostered the impression that its women are
rarely allowed a voice. Cunningham prints leaflets and posters targeting Bengali women and recently set up the Saturday session to be run only by Muslim women lawyers – such as Shamle Begum from Slaughter and May – hoping this might reverse the trend. So far, the Saturday sessions have been fairly quiet. Cunningham notes, however, that significantly more Bengali women are coming to the other sessions, particularly the ones for housing and debt problems. ‘Where as previously only one in 60 clients was a Bengali woman, now it’s eight or nine,’ he points out. ‘Awareness has definitely been raised.’ The journal Criminal Law Week is currently the single biggest contributor to the legal advice centre, although Linklaters, Ashurst, Allen & Overy, Mayer and Trowers & Hamlin all make annual donations. But it is the volunteers who really make the place work. When they turn up.
Continuity issues Cunningham’s key pressures involve continuity. ‘The volunteers take on cases and if they don’t turn up one week and their client does, then someone else has to step in,’ he says. ‘Clients understand that lawyers may not be there every week, but I do ask lawyers to try and make it three weeks out of four.’
THOSE THAT DO... SOME TOYNBEE VOLUNTEERS PROFESSIONAL PARTNER Lorna Brazell Firm: Bird & Bird Made partner: 2002 Started volunteering: 1994 Hours per week: four ‘LORNA approaches Toynbee clients in the same way she approaches her City clients; anyone that comes across her would be very foolish not to take her seriously. I’ve regularly seen her turn down other work-related functions so that she can make her weekly shift at Toynbee.’ Jane Mutimear, partner, Bird & Bird
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ACTIVITY LEADER Ben Giaretta Firm: Ashurst Qualified: 2001 Started volunteering: 1999 Hours per week: one ‘BEN is one of the leaders of Ashurst pro bono activity. It is thanks to people like him that we are as committed to the work we do in the community as we are to our business deals.’ Graeme Ward, pro bono partner, Ashurst
AID WORKER David Rhodes Chambers: Doughty Street Chambers Called to the bar: 2002 Started volunteering: 2000 Hours per week: three ‘DAVID is utterly dedicated to Toynbee and has taken on some of the more complicated cases we’ve seen.’ Ian McGimpsey, resident volunteer manager, Toynbee Hall
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‘The problems may not be the same as with a multi-million pound corporation but there’s always a human element in dealing with people and that is a very important part of being a lawyer.’ Ben Giaretta, an assistant at Ashurst who has been volunteering at Toynbee Hall since 1999
As the clients enter the waiting area, one junior barrister collapses into a chair. Not realising, perhaps, that she’s just sat down next to a journalist, she announces: ‘I’m knackered, it’s been a heavy week so far.’ But once she knows her neighbour’s profession, she stresses: ‘But this is a great thing to do. You get a real sense of achievement.’ Ashurst lawyer Ben Giaretta believes that pro bono is a moral duty. ‘In the US, it is part of being a lawyer,’ he said, ‘and I think there’s a lot of merit in that.’ ‘Yes, if I’m exhausted I still go,’ says Richard Thomas, a barrister at 1 Harcourt Building. ‘There’s nothing worse than people doing this grudgingly. If you’re going to do it, then you do it because you think it’s worthwhile.’ Thomas was a resident volunteer in 2000 while doing his bar pupillage. He paid a weekly accommodation and board fee of £80, and did a mandatory six hours of voluntary work. ‘I joined the law because I wanted a skill that I could use usefully,’
DEDICATED LEADER Christopher Coombe Firm: Linklaters Made partner: 1983 Started volunteering: 1976 Hours per week: seven ‘CHRISTOPHER manages to combine being a partner at a top City law firm with enormous dedication to Toynbee. It says a lot for his humanity as well as his intellect.’ Henry Hood, chairman, legal advice centre, Toynbee Hall
he says. ‘Residential volunteering is about taking a sense of social responsibility into a profession. I think that’s very important because you need socially responsible people at every level.’ The other benefit for lawyers is the experience. Giaretta reckons that he has seen more clients face-to-face than anyone else at Ashurst. ‘The problems may not be the same as with a multi-million pound corporation but there’s always a human element in dealing with people and that is a very important part of being a lawyer,’ he says.
Not the day job Bird & Bird’s Lorna Brazell is the only working partner from the City to dedicate an evening a week, alongside trainees and junior barristers, to Toynbee’s
CHARITY CHAIRMAN Henry Hood Firm: Hunters Made partner: 1991 Started volunteering: 1985 Hours per week: two ‘HENRY is the person I turn to when I have a problem. He gives me the emotional support as well as the practical.’ Brian Cunningham, co-ordinator, legal advice centre, Toynbee Hall
legal advice centre. She cites the contrast with her day job as part of the usefulness of the exercise. An IP specialist by training, Brazell’s Toynbee work has included advocacy on two full court cases. ‘I just wouldn’t get that kind of experience at Bird & Bird,’ she says. According to Brazell, most City lawyers are not seeking this kind of training. She says that younger lawyers may be scared of volunteering at Toynbee Hall because they think that they will be confronted with a Bengali family, broken English, and a whole host of problems. ‘But the reality is that most of the time we see contract disputes that need to be worked out over a period of weeks or months,’ she points out. David Rhodes is a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers; he used to be a resident volunteer at Toynbee and now rents a flat there. As he was sitting his Bar finals, he ended up taking a case to court. A woman had been left with council tax arrears after her husband’s death; her only means of income was a kiosk which she didn’t want to sell. The council was looking to make her bankrupt. ‘It was pretty terrifying,’ Rhodes recalls. ‘But after a series of arm-twistings from my friends here at Toynbee, I was pretty much told to go to court and smile!’ He won the case.
The means to test Toynbee’s high profile means the legal advice centre is at risk of being exploited by people who can afford solicitors’ fees, but don’t want to pay them. A few years ago, a man came in and complained that he was being sued for £800. He wanted his name cleared. A volunteer solicitor from Toynbee took the case to court and won. He later discovered that his client was a City banker earning an annual package in the region of £500,000 – an extreme
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> example, but miserliness is an ongoing problem when such a resource is being offered for free. Other events make bogus claims pale into insignificance. Ashurst assistant Giaretta now sits on the legal advice centre committee. He recalls one instance when he represented a man at Bow County Court. His client was owed £3,000 by his cousin’s husband and the judge ordered it to be paid back. ‘That kind of money makes a massive difference to some people’s lives,’ he explains. ‘For some people, the help we give is invaluable.’ But Giaretta accepts that volunteering is not for everyone. He has a friend who, through Toynbee, was involved in a will dispute that dragged on for many months and was never resolved. Utterly disconsolate, his friend decided that his efforts were misdirected, and gave up volunteering. ‘The trick is to know your limitations,’ Giaretta notes.
‘The reality is that most of the time we see contract disputes that need to be worked out over a period of weeks or months.’Lorna Brazell, Bird & Bird Cunningham copes with people’s limitations every day. At Toynbee, clients are encouraged to drop in without an appointment, or any kind of screening. ‘People taking advantage of us doesn’t happen very often and if we were to apply some sort of means test then we would suddenly have a lot of restrictions placed on us,’ he says. ‘I don’t want that. I would rather keep an open drop-in centre and take each case as it comes.’
Confident clients Generally, clients are unreservedly grateful for the free service. A young Bengali woman tells me that this is the fourth time she’s been to visit the Toynbee Hall legal advice centre. She says that she had heard of it because some of her relatives have used it in the past. But when she saw an advert in the paper, she decided to come herself. ‘I’ve spent 45 minutes talking to a lawyer today, but I’d like
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to have had more time with him,’ she said. ‘In the paper, it says that the lawyers just give advice, but he’s helped me with my whole complaint.’ She particularly liked being allocated retired Linklaters lawyer David Strachan. ‘He’s really good,’ she enthuses. ‘Because he’s older, he has had much more experience and that makes it easier for him to help.’ Indeed, the seniority of the volunteers has decreased since one of the most active senior volunteers, Peter Grobel, was appointed a circuit judge in 2001. At the same time, affable and dedicated partner Henry Hood of private client firm Hunters, who started volunteering in 1983, took a step back in order to take up the chairmanship of the legal advice centre. ‘Volunteers are drawn more exclusively from the City firms than they were ten or 15 years ago,’ Hood says, offering this as an explanation the relative youth of the volunteers. For many of these helpers, there is an obvious tension between pressure at work and time spent as a volunteer, particularly as their careers develop. Cunningham acknowledges that this is a problem, but says that he always makes sure that there are at least two senior lawyers at each session. ‘We have plenty of junior lawyers that come for the benefit of their CVs,’ he explains, ‘but I could definitely do with some more senior people. It’s much harder to persuade older lawyers to come, because they have more demanding lifestyle commitments. I say people should build it into their lives; as they go to the gym on Tuesdays, they could be a volunteer on Wednesdays.’ Strachan finds that volunteering adds much to his retirement. ‘I really enjoy it,’ he beams. ‘Some people are scared of coming, but my advice is to give it a go. After a lifetime of experience you can usually flounder your way through anything. If you can’t help immediately, take notes and then go away and think about it.’ Strachan has good cause to smile. He’s just heard that a client who lives in Somalia, and whose case he has been working on for several years, has been granted the widow’s pension she was seeking and will now receive £11,000 in back pay. ‘She’s practically a millionaire,’ he notes, with no little pride. LB vanessa.pawsey@legalease.co.uk